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Special Lightning Sailboat

MM2CVS9

Active member
Well, even though I have 5 builds on the bench already, I took on another one. A fellow bought a Dumas kit of the Lightning out of town. When he returned home, he went to the LHS to find a builder for the kit. The in house builder there was not interested in doing it, so he contacted Rod at the model club. Rod really builds gold medal winning ships that look like wood, but they are all plastic. He wasn't interested either. He asked if I would be interested (I felt good that he thought I was a good enough builder to recommend) and if so to contact "Q" at the LHS to follow up on it, which I did. He put the guy in touch with me, we talked and the upshot is that I was hired to do the build. I'm getting paid to do what I love to do! :yipee We'll see how I feel about that later. Nothing like a little pressure!

It is a 1:12 scale Dumas kit, and like all wood "kits", it is more a box of materials than a kit. I've done several of the Midwest kits (they have recently stopped making kits) and this one is similar. It has a 24 page manual with 9 pages of drawings, a 24" X 36" sheet of full size drawings, the wood, mostly mahogany and basswood, and a few do-da's of hardware, wire, brass tube and wire, some string for rigging. The rigging, eyebolts and stuff I'll replace with something I like better.

In talking to the client, the boat is the same as one owned by his dad. His dad sold it to a fellow from Traverse City MI, who promptly sunk it in Grand Traverse Bay. As he wants it to be that boat, I'll meet with him in a week or so to pick out paint color for the hull, color of the masts and spars, and pick his memory about stuff like the rigging color, trim and other stuff. He wants it to be a waterline model, so I'll have to reinforce the frames do I can cut off the hull to the waterline. It will have no sails, but will have standing and running rigging.

The real boats, there were over 11,000 of them built, were 19' long, 6' - 6" beam, 15'-3" long at the waterline with a sail area of 177 square feet. Most of them were built of wood, but the more modern one's were fiberglass. All of them were painted to the wishes of the owner. This one will be grey, selected by the client. There are sailing clubs and groups all over that have annual regattas and races for these boats.

The kit;














Meantime, I'll keep picking away on my fleet oiler build and the fleet of wood rowboats.
 
Finally got caught up on stuff and called the client today. Made an appointment for him to come to my shop and discuss the "boat". I asked him a bunch of questions to get him thinking before the meeting. I want to build this thing as the boat he remembers, not something I see in my head.

The meeting is Tuesday the 14th, so I'll have an update then.
 
Well, maybe. But if it's like he remembers it - hull colors, rigging color, furniture colors, masts and spars finish, etc, that's all that counts. I have to paint, stain and finish it, the colors really don't make any difference to me. We'll see how it goes.
 
After the guy cancelled a meeting twice, I finally met him at my bench to select colors and such. The conversation came around to rigging. The kit comes with some kinda thin, cloth looking plastic material sails. I had told him I'm no good at sails, but would do the standing and running rigging. Now he wants the sails to be installed, tied to the boom and mast as they would be in port. The discussion became kinda heated regarding the type of rigging, as the kit instructions and the materials supplied are different than he wants. Had a tough time figuring out what he was talking about as his terminology and mine aren't the same, even though he claims to have been a sailor of these things. Seems my brain and his don't roll on the same track. :bang head Anyway, I'm not gonna do the sails so he took them with him to fuss around with, along with the screw eyes that he didn't like and some wire he says I don't need and as the model is to be waterlined, the two pieces of mahogany for the bottom, as I'll now have to make replacements out of basswood plywood. He says he's gonna make another hull and display it as a boat under construction for his display (He builds train layouts, I don't know what scale). I'm not sure this is gonna turn out well.

Here is where I'm at -
The 4 pc keel assembly


two - 2 piece sheer assemblies


The building board set up + the keel and sheer assemblies


The frames set - sheers set - frames aligned and glued to the building board - joints at the keel and sheers glued. Bow end of keel formed to an angle - chines angled to fit bow -. Chines glued to bow end of keel and chine notches in first frame. Letting glue set until tomorrow so they won't pop off when bent to the remainder of the frames.


Fairly simple / easy kit though.
 
Today, got the chines formed & glued - set aside to set up good.


Made two sets of bottom planks, one to grind off to waterline the model, one to finish the false bottom as the bottom is also the deck in the well area.


Then sanded the keel, chines, sheer and frames to fair in everything ready to apply bottom and side planks.


One side of hull bottom installed.


Both bottom pieces fitted and installed, Centerboard slot cut out, removed from building board, trimmed planks close to chines, added glue to all hull joints from inside that couldn't be reached while still attached to building board.


Tomorrow, will sand the bottom planks flush to chines, cut off stubs on frames flush to sheers and install some reinforcing bits and the hull sides.

Making headway.
 
Making progress - Starting to look like a boat.

Bottom planks sanded fair to chines, temporary mounting feet and bracing cut off from sheers and sanded in. Deck plank blocking added.


One mahogany side plank installed.


Second side installed.


Side planks trimmed and sanded / faired in to bottom planks and sheers. Transom plank installed. Blocks installed at frames 2 and 6 for standing rigging (back stay and shrouds) eyes.


Tomorrow, two sealer coats on entire hull, prime and one paint coat in well deck before installing the top deck.
 
Gaining on it a bit.
After finishing the hull sides and bottom planks, I proceeded to "waterline" her, as the client requested. The hull sides and bracing held all the bulkheads and frames together for this operation. I marked the waterline with a surface gauge, then used a 6" wide belt sander to grind her bottom down, then flattened it out with two sheets of sandpaper glued to a piece of glass with spray adhesive, kinda rubbing the boat over the flat sandpaper to get it nice and flat. Then installed the new bottom in one sheet and faired in the edges. It took off all of the original bottom except for a couple triangular spots at the stern and a bit at the bow as you can see here.


Here's how she sits.


Next, primed her outside and in the cockpit. The sides were mahogany from the kit, the rest was basswood that I had cut using the kit parts as templates. The mahogany was so porous that the med super glue penetrated all the way through, staining it so if it were to be clear coated, it would show. Fortunately, all this would be painted, although it took 5 coats and sealer to "get the grain out".


The exterior is light gray primer, the cockpit is the USN Pale grey the client picked.


Then the floorboards and seats. I fitted and glued together the mahogany parts, fitted the floorboards. Then clear coated them with Vallejo satin varnish. Shoulda used a lacquer clear coat, as the water based Vallejo warped the heck out of the parts. After letting them dry for a couple days, I tried soaking them in water for 5 minutes, then placing them on the glass work surface, covering them with another piece of glass and adding some weight. I hoped they wouldn't stick to the glass. I was lucky. They came out flat as a pancake. I glued the floorboards and the seat assembly in place and after letting it sit overnight applied a coat of Vallejo satin over the grey paint of the cockpit and a coat of Model Master Acryl semi-gloss clear to the mahogany parts so they look more like marine spar varnish.


Next - add the top deck, fair it in, add some cockpit trim and a rub rail and hang a coat of paint on it.
 
A bit more headway.
The hull is almost complete except for the fore deck splash boards. Paint work is MM acrylic over Tamayia primer. Then two coats Vallejo Polyurethane varnish in satin finish. Mahogany was clearcoated 2 coats Vallejo semi gloss, spruce mast and boom minwax colonial stain with 2 coats Vallejo semi gloss.
The cockpit

Soon comes the rigging. I had to replace the basswood mast and boom as both were warped. Made new ones from spruce. The back stay and perhaps the jib stay on this boat were wire rope, so, I found some 7 strand wire to play with. I stripped one strand out of it and used it to wrap the 6 strand loop at the eye. We'll see if the client likes it.
 
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